Tunes

[David Cook]

Hello, I have become quite interested in your Tunes project recently. I have 
been aware of it for several months, and keep coming back.

I would really like to be on the project team. I have tons of ideas and some 
coding experience. Right now, I think that you ar trying to achieve too much at 
once, though. 

Why don't we try to get a simple GUI to start with, instead of something 
complex. Eventually, the GUI should not use real world metaphors.. it should 
create new ones.. it should eschew things like file cabinets, and all. The GUI 
would be 3d, and work something like Dr. Who's TARDIS. Just like it, in fact...

The filesystem would have to be all new, too. It would have to be OO. Database 
internals, and some other stuff in there.

I am thinking here, that there should be a standard hardware platform, in 
addition to the OS. The hardware would be the ultimate in computing. Affordable 
(made possible by OS), and feature packed. Some ideas I have is infrared 
networking. Every, say 30 seconds the IR ports are checked to see if a network 
connection is possible. Thus, to network your computer with other computers is 
to merely move them into the same room! All network connections should be 
treated exactly the same as local storage. Hardware would also include different 
things to accelarate the OS, and make it the perfect computing environment. 
Small things, too.. like a Dvorak keyboard. 
I really like that new serial bus, too. RAID hard disks.

Overall the most important thing with the OS HAS TO BE Reliability. People  will 
never be able to have a computer on every desk if things like $2000.00+ 
computers are required to run WINDOWS95! Reliability is so important. As is 
usability. Simplicity would make usability great. Make the control classes a 
little sparse, but broad ranging.

The BeOS is a great model for us to use on some of the stuff.. Applications 
might be able to be based on global objects. Like a spell checker that works for 
a word processor, mail program, graphics program, and anything else that uses a 
specific data type (text). So, really applications become these collaborations 
of extensible objects. Then, users can make their own applications! Storage 
space, and customization get maxed out with this method. People would be using 
different data types, and such with different apps, so compatiblity might become 
a problem, but I am sure that could be overidden.

The BeOS uses kits too which is nice. You should look at their API, which is 
great. Lots of built in functionality.

I don't see the purpose of an LLL and HLL... shouldn't there be only one level 
of abstraction? Explain.

I really think that if we offered people a HIGHLY reliable, powerful, easy OS 
with features like encryption & compression, with lots of datatype built in... 
that people would respond very well.. A hardware platform would really propel 
things, and make a great PERSONAL COMPUTER. At a probably lower price point for 
the Hardware. (OS would be free, with source of course) PCs just aren't PCs yet. 
They are slow, and highly unreliable... nobody in Microsoft and Intel are doing 
anything about it either, for backwards compatibility... but where do you draw 
the line? Well, we are talking personal computing, so we are not obligated to 
any of that stuff. Create something new, and more expandable/upgradeable.

David Cook